Tuesday, March 30, 2010

So to try and spice up the small campaign and make it more entertaining...

the original idea seems to have fallen through. Ideally, I wanted it to be a chance to take our small, secondary armies and add units to our collection as we went:

Example, for my Wood Elf army, I got a Rare option. If I wanted to use, say...an Eagle, the idea was it would be a manageable expense to go purchase one, a short time to assemble and paint it and boom, my army looked better.

Then, if I gained a Special unit, I could go purchase 3 treekin, for example, assemble and paint them in time for the battle.

That, for a variety of reasons, has proven to be an unworkable model for most if not all of us.

The secondary idea was to get people experience with a variety of armies...for example, I normally play the WoC and Wood Elf armies, so it would be a good chance for me to make, say...a Dark Elf or Ogre army, to try some new things.

That has also proven to be an unworkable model.

So I propose that, effective immediately after the conclusion of the currently scheduled small campaign battles, we go to a new model that is this:

Neutral armies will be opponent's choice with a points value + or 1 25% of the Player's army.

Example: I have a 1000 point Wood Elf army moving into London and Kev elects to play against me as the neutral army. Roll d6: on 1-2, he can build a 750 point army. On a 3-5 he can build a 1000 point army. On a 6 he can build a 1250 point army. He can choose any army he wishes with the following restriction: NO PROXIES IN NEUTRAL ARMIES.

Additionally, we would allow an instant reset in out own armies. No more restrictions based on anything other than if your army list allows it. Instead, we switch to a "meets legal army restrictions and no more than one proxy unit" formula.

This will encourage us to use the models we have and clean up the messy book keeping. It will also make it much more about just getting out there and playing games.

So who prefers it the way it is now and who wants to switch to either or both of the new ideas? Let me know in the comments on here.

He set a difficult ground to the East of the hill in his deployment zone.

I set a small town next to the lake on the Eastern side.

Then we scattered terrain. At first it looked like things would stay pretty much as they were. In fact things changed substantially. The small town on the East side moved almost dead center in the middle of the table. The forest in the middle North came South to just outside the town. While these were the only significant scatters, it significantly changed the face of the board. Despite the apparent tactical advantage of the town (the ability to have my skinks go from the water to the buildings) I had really just placed it to make an interesting looking board. Now it would have a significant strategic impact on the game. The forest fixeddice had placed to protect his hill was now in position to protest a skirmish troop approaching the hill or his flank and to disrupt movement, but not much else.

As we set up our troops, it began to look like the entire battle would take place on the Western half of the board. The town and forest essentially divided the board into two halves for anyone but fast cavalry, flyers, and skirmishers.

Seeing how placement was shaping up, I placed Tetto'Eko on the Eastern side of the board. I figured I did not want him where he would be in much danger of getting into close combat. His Skink cohort bodyguards can be effective harrying troops if ignored or take a fair amount of missile fire, but are not much good in a stand-up fight. Running out of room on the West side and seeing that I was possibly taking control of the East, he placed his Cold Ones and his Chariot on his Eastern flank.

His chariot he placed on the Eastern edge set up to ride between the lake and the table edge. He realized later that this was a mistake. He had thought that chariots could march. In looking up another chariot rule, he noticed the rule that says chariots cannot march. This meant that his maximum movement would be 7. Being placed on the far edge of a six foot board with a 7" movement meant he would have little or no chance to have his chariot really impact the battle. (7" x 6 turns equals a maximum 42." If you are charging and overrunning a lot, a chariot can move pretty fast, but if it only gets one charge like it did in this game, it essentially takes you out of the battle to be that far away from things.)

I put my kroxigor on my West flank West of a unit of skirmishers. My Cold One Knights went behind the skirmishers. I put my two units of Saurus Warriors flanking and slightly in front of my Temple Guard with Slann. On my East flank I placed skirmishers between Tetto'Eko and a Barbed Razordon Hunting Pack. This would be the first time I had used the razordons and I was curious to see how they would perform. I also placed my Chameleon Skinks in the lake. Here they would be protected by the impassible terrain and soft cover, but be close enough to influence and harry the approaching troops.

It occurred to me during his first turn that I had left my entire Eastern flank with Ld 6 and no real help. This was probably a serious strategic error, although it ended up not mattering all that much.

Turn 1He got the first turn. He moved some troops forward and did a couple wounds shooting.I did likewise, inching forward and doing what shooting I could. My Chameleon skinks did a wound or two to Krone and her Manticore. I did one wound to a reaper bolt thrower and killed one crew with my Terradons. His Dark Riders had advanced on my West flank. I moved my Skink Skirmishers to try and block them while I moved my Cold Ones and Kroxigor to be ready to charge if they worked around my skirmishers.

Turn 2

I had moved a unit of skirmishers in front of my Skink unit with Tetto'Eko. He charged that unit with both Krone and his Cold One Knights. He also charged my Razordon Hunting Pack with his chariot. I rolled 4 artillery dice with the razodons (2 razodons, 2 dice each) to end up with 22 for their stand-and-shoot. They got a ridiculously high number of hits. Something like 18 or 19 out of 22. Then they wounded with about half of those. However, the chariot saved all but 2. The dark riders charged my skirmishers on the West end. Two units of Witch Elves charged my two units of 10 Saurus Warriors with Spears.

The chariot tore through the Razordons, killing one with its impact hits, and the other with the efforts of the Cold Ones and the chariot rider. Some more shooting did a couple wounds. The Krone tore up the skirmishers and both she and the Cold Ones overran into my Tetto'Eko unit.

The dark riders killed the skirmishers they were fighting and overran into the Kroxigor. I had placed them facing the side of the skirmisher unit, being accustomed to fast cavalry avoiding combat at all costs. This meant that when the Dark Riders overran, they hit the flank of the Kroxigor unit. At first, I thought the Krox had run off the table, but then fixeddice pointed out that the skirmishers were only unit strength 2 when the phase started, meaning that no test had to be taken by the Krox.

The two combats with the Saurus went much better for me. His big unit of 15 with the Hag in it lost by a little bit, but stayed put. The unit of eight that charged the more Western unit of Saurus faired less well, losing by several and fleeing. My Saurus caught them and destroyed them, with both flee-er and pursuer rolling 5's.

On my turn, I charged his more Eastern Reaper Bolt Thrower. I charged his rear unit of Witch Elves with my remaining seven Saurus in the unit that had overrun the previous turn. I re-positioned my Temple Guard unit in hopes of dealing with Krone and the Cold Ones as they came around the town. He had moved his Hydra over behind my Cold Ones

The game was interrupted on Saturday. We had to finish the following Tuesday.

When we resumed on Tuesday it was the start of the Dark Elves' turn 4. His chariot failed its stupidity test. The Cold Ones pulling it stumbled forward at about the rate of a fast walking dwarf. He moved his Cold One Knights forward trying to stay just outside of my knights' charge range.We think he was inside, but I ended up deciding not to. I figured I would not be likely to win a straight-on fight with his knights because of the characters in the unit, especially Malus. Instead I attempted to re-position to force a charge on my Temple Guard in such a way as to allow my Cold Ones to counter charge in the flank.